Elon
Musk to present manned DragonV2 spacecraft on May 29

SpaceX is on the verge of revealing the next generation version of its
Dragon spacecraft, one which the company hopes will allow the United States to
once again send its own astronauts into space by 2017.

The unveiling will take place on Friday, May 29, at the company’s
headquarters in Hawthorne, California. There, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will
personally showcase the company’s latest space taxi, dubbed the “Dragon
V2.”

“SpaceX’s
new Dragon V2 spacecraft is a next generation spacecraft designed to carry
astronauts into space,”read
a statement by the company, according to the website Universe Today.

The announcement will also follow through on Musk’s tweet from April,
which noted that“actual
flight design hardware”of
the new Dragon would be shown. In addition to carrying supplies, the Dragon V2
will also be capable of transporting up to seven astronauts to and from the
International Space Station.

Elon Musk (Reuters)

Originally designed with the help of NASA through a $1.6 billion
Commercial Resupply Services contract, the original Dragon was an unmanned
spaceship that could transfer up to 20,000 kg (44,000 pounds) of cargo to the
ISS. The Dragon was successfully launched to the ISS in 2012, becoming the first
private ship to deliver supplies to the station and return back to
Earth.

When NASA retired the space shuttle program in 2011, however, the United
States lost the ability to launch astronauts into space on its own. Instead, it
has relied on Russia to hitch rides to the ISS, paying about $71 million per
seat on the country’s Soyuz spacecraft. According to The Week, the US has racked
up a bill of nearly $458 billion over the last three years.

That relationship was thrust into an awkward light in the wake of the
Ukraine conflict, with the US applying sanctions on Russia following the
accession of Crimea and Moscow criticizing the Americans for encouraging
protests against country’s elected leadership under former president Viktor
Yanukovych.

In late April, Russia’s deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin took to
Twitter and, referring to US reliance on Moscow for transportation to the ISS,
suggested sanctions would backfire on Washington“like
a boomerang.”

"After
analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to
bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a
trampoline,”he
tweeted.

This prompted a response from Musk, who replied,“Sounds
like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that
@SpaceX has been working on w @NASA. No trampoline needed.”

Whether or not the Dragon V2 arrives ready to go in 2017, however,
remains to be seen. As noted by Universe Today, Congress has routinely cut
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program budget, and manned orbital test flights were
already pushed from original dates in 2015 to the current 2017
timeframe.

Meanwhile, the Dragon V2 isn't the only spacecraft battling for NASA’s
consideration. Both Boeing and Sierra Nevada are also developing space taxis
intended to travel to the ISS, and NASA is expected to distribute the next wave
of contracts sometime this summer.

RSIS presents the following commentary Xi Jinping’s ‘Monroe Doctrine’: Rebuilding the Middle Kingdom Order? by Sukjoon Yoon. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward anycomments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, atRSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg. Republication is allowed subject to prior permission from the Editor.

No. 102/2014 dated 29 May 2014

Xi Jinping’s ‘Monroe Doctrine’:Rebuilding the Middle Kingdom Order?

By Sukjoon Yoon

Synopsis

Xi
Jinping’s declaration that China should strive to become a “true
maritime power” is redolent of a Chinese version of the Monroe doctrine
or the old Middle Kingdom order. The recent issues in the East and South
China seas demonstrate China’s incremental pursuit of its ambition to
be the dominant maritime power in the region.

Commentary

CHINESE
PRESIDENT Xi Jinping’s conception of true maritime power is intertwined
with several complex issues: internal factors about the legitimacy of
his leadership and external factors like territorial disputes in the
East and South China seas which concern sovereignty.

East Asian
nations must consider the implications of China’s approach and its
impact on the region: is it possible to influence and countervail China
by standing together, even as Beijing pursues its salami-slicing
strategy?

Xi Jinping’s four thrusts: Chinese Monroe doctrine?

From
Xi’s remarks it seems that he is more committed to a long-term maritime
strategy than his predecessors. He is basically attempting to restore
the ancient Middle Kingdom regional order through four thrusts:

First,
establishing new high-profile organisations dealing with maritime
policy and strategy, especially the States Security Committee; second,
upgrading naval capabilities to counter the US pivot to Asia and back up
its civil maritime law enforcement; third, reframing issues relating to
the East and South China seas away from prevailing international law
and towards what China sees as its historical rights; and fourth,
demonstrating China’s ostensible goodwill through participation in
international forums and multilateral exercises in the region.

Xi
Jinping can afford to be patient. Certainly the current maritime
policies being pursued by China are intended as a warning, especially to
the US, not to intervene in Chinese affairs in any part of the East and
South China seas. Xi also expects US influence in the region to
continue to weaken. Current Chinese policy is readily understood as a
Chinese version of the Monroe doctrine, which the US declared in 1823 to
deter the European great powers from interfering in seas the US
construed as its natural sphere of influence. Could this be a
contemporary rendition of the old Middle Kingdom regional order
dominated by China?

China is implicitly challenging the
collective defence posture encouraged by Washington, as the
self-appointed guardian of the Indo-Pacific region. It is easy to
empathise with the concerns of China’s smaller and vulnerable
neighbours, who have bitter memories of living as tributary states to
the Middle Kingdom, when all of the surrounding seas were a medium for
the projection of China’s overwhelming power and influence.

Xi
will not be satisfied until this system has been recreated around
modern-day China. Despite being very vocal in defence of China’s core
national interests, however, he has yet to issue any detailed doctrine
concerning how China’s maritime forces should interact with, and, by
implication, ultimately protect, its neighbours.Impact: slicing the salamiXi
Jinping seems determined to establish China as a maritime power through
an incremental strategy. Following lessons learned from the historical
advances of Western colonial powers, China will gradually become more
and more assertive across a wider and wider maritime area, whilst,
crucially, avoiding any serious reaction from the US, until the Chinese
position in the East and South China seas is beyond challenge.

Those
nations that most cherish their ability to act independently will feel
the greatest impact, and any who attempt to obstruct Xi’s salami-slicing
tactics will quickly experience the consequences of China’s
displeasure. The nations of the region must understand the real purpose
underlying Xi’s true maritime power policy - nothing less than the
restoration of China’s traditional maritime order.

Recent
examples of China’s incremental approach include: declaring an Air
Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea, in November
2013; enforcing new fishing regulations, in January 2014, which oblige
all foreign fishing vessels to apply for permission before entering a
vast swath of the South China Sea, including areas contested by Vietnam
and the Philippines; and unilaterally moving an oil rig into Vietnam’s
Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea on 1 May.

Time and
circumstance are on Xi Jinping’s side. A war-weary US is unwilling to
chance any serious maritime confrontation with China. Although the US
military is attempting to rebalance its naval powers to the
Asia-Pacific, after financial sequestration it lacks the resources to do
this quickly or effectively; and US forces are also still engaged in
other regions like the strife-torn Middle East, as well as acquiring new
commitments in Europe to check Russia’s westward advance through
Ukraine.

China, meanwhile, can take the long view and lean on
its rivals in the disputed areas as opportunity allows, slicing the
maritime salami whenever it becomes possible. In this situation, where
the struggle between the two great powers of the region is becoming ever
more open, the other regional powers, especially those which can be
characterised as middle powers - ASEAN, India, Australia, Canada, Japan
and South Korea - are therefore seeking to establish strategic
cooperative partnerships and networks with one another. Such efforts
have, however, so far not been coherent, nor is it clear how effectively
they could cooperate to resist China.

In fact, all the
countries of the region are fearful of Xi’s drive to turn China into a
maritime power, since none has forces on a scale to match China’s, and
they have very little military leverage to resist its might.

What can regional nations do?

So
where does this leave them? Throughout the region there is an earnest
desire to believe that Xi Jinping really does want China to be a
responsible player in maintaining maritime peace and stability; they can
only hope for greater restraint in the use of “reactive assertiveness”,
“tailored coercion” and “forceful persuasion” to pursue its claims in
the East and South China seas. At least there is now a policy to avoid
the use of naval warships for law enforcement in the disputed waters.

Although
none of China’s neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region can match its
maritime capabilities on an individual basis, they could work together
to respond to China’s long-term policy of its version of the Monroe
doctrine. They should do everything possible to deter Xi’s
salami-slicing tactics, without escalating maritime tensions, to prevent
China from establishing a fait accompli in which the Middle Kingdom
regional order is reconstructed.

Captain
(ROK Navy Ret.) Sukjoon Yoon is a Senior Research Fellow in the Korea
Institute for Maritime Strategy, and visiting professor of the
Department of Defence Systems Engineering in Sejong University, Seoul,
South Korea.

The resounding gains made by the anti-EU parties in last week's European
parliamentary elections have alerted Europe's mainstream leadership to
its fundamentally precarious position. This is a warning Stratfor
sounded more than two years ago, when we predicted the rise of the far
right and cautioned that these fringe groups should not be
underestimated, precisely because they were tapping into very real and
deepening sentiments that emerged from the economic and social malaise
that has developed since 2008.

The highest levels of European leadership are finally and unequivocally
feeling the political consequences of years of unemployment and
stagnating growth across much of the continent. The dismal election
results for many of the mainstream European parties (particularly in
France, Spain and the United Kingdom) overshadowed the small but
much-lauded gross domestic product growth figures for the year to date
that dominated headlines until last week.

The current European leadership sees the rapid rise of Euroskeptical
parties as an existential threat to the postwar order in Europe. This is
not only because of old specters of Europe's bloody nationalist past,
but also because the economic and financial stability of the continent
has been rigged (sometimes haphazardly) around the open market and
common currency that these Euroskeptical parties want to recuse.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Kirsten Powers: Glenn Greenwald vs. fellow
journalists

Kirsten
Powers5:35 p.m. EDT May 27,
2014

Thank, don't criticize, the man who exposed NSA spying.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty
Images)

Since
breaking the National Security Agency spying story forThe(London)Guardianlast
year, Glenn Greenwald has been thetarget
of attacksfromfellow
journalistswho seem to labor
under the delusion that it's their job to protect the government.

Soon
after hereportedrevelations of government malfeasance
provided by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, NBC's David GregoryaskedGreenwald, "To the extent that you have
aided and abetted Snowden ... why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with
a crime?"

This
accusation, dressed up as a question, was nonsensical. That it came from a
fellow journalist was bizarre. How could reporting news be "aiding and
abetting"? What crime could Greenwald possibly have committed? Most important,
which government minion tricked the host ofMeet the Pressinto thinking that reporters can't —
and don't — publish government secrets?

Now
we have Michael Kinsley doubling down on the chilling notion that certain types
of investigative journalism should be criminalized. In hisNew York Timesreviewof Greenwald's new book,No Place to Hide,Kinsley argues, "There shouldn't be a
special class of people called 'journalists' with privileges like publishing
secret government documents."

Actually,
there should be, andthere is. Without
that protection,The Timescould not have published thePentagon
Papers. Take that protection away, and we have zero oversight of the
government from outside forces.

Kinsleywritesthat the decision of which official
secrets can be made public "must ultimately be made by the government." If a
reporter violates this norm, there should be "legal consequences."

Kinsley
is too smart to believe this. Perhaps he can't see past his contempt for
Greenwald, who hecomplainsis "unpleasant" and a "self-righteous
sourpuss."

Last
year,The Timesmedia writerDavid
Carrdrilled down on the
strange fury Greenwald inspires in other journalists. Carr discovered that there
was a general "distaste" of Greenwald and his ilk because, said one journo,
"they are ... not like us."

That
Greenwald is not a member of the Washington insider club seems to be the real
problem here. Instead, he views himself as an outsider and adversary of the
powerful, traits once commonplace among journalists.

Pentagon
Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg noted that the friendly fire against Greenwald is
unusual. Ellsbergtold
an interviewer last yearthat
though he himself was an enemy of the government for leaking secrets during the
Vietnam War, "journalists were not turning on journalists."

Political
philosopherHannah
Arendt once noted,"To think
critically is to always be hostile." This should be the mantra of all
journalists. As for Greenwald's critics, perhaps they could turn their hostile
gaze from him to a more worthwhile target: the government they've been charged
with holding accountable.

DAVID Cameron triggered a backlash
yesterday after suggesting the European Union should open its doors to
new members “from the Atlantic to the Urals”.

The Prime
Minister made the hugely provocative pro-EU speech on the day Croatia
became the Union’s 28th member state as he toured the former Soviet
republic of Kazakhstan.

Talking to Kazakh students in the capital Astana he said: “Britain has always supported the widening of the EU.

“Our
vision of the EU is that it should be a large trading and co-operating
organisation that effectively stretches, as it were, from the Atlantic
to the Urals.

“We have a wide vision of Europe and have always encouraged countries that want to join.”

The Urals mark the unofficial border between Europe and Asia in Russia.

His remarks indicate that he believes that Ukraine, once known as the bread basket of the USSR, should be admitted to the EU.

They come as British MPs prepare for a crunch vote on an in/out referendum this Friday.

They
also appear to ignore fears about a huge influx of Romanians and
Bulgarians when the restrictions on their rights to work in Britain are
lifted early next year.

I am sure the thought of hundreds of thousands and millions
of Kazakhs and Ukrainians coming to Britain under the EU’s freedom of
movement rules will help people decide in an in/out referendum

Douglas Carswell MP

Conservative MP
and eurosceptic Douglas Carswell said: “I am sure the thought of
hundreds of thousands and millions of Kazakhs and Ukrainians coming to
Britain under the EU’s freedom of movement rules will help people decide
in an in/out referendum.

“I think the Prime Minister should be talking about swapping places with these countries.

“We leave the EU and they can have our empty space.”

UK
Independence Party leader Nigel Farage warned that millions of extra
migrants would get access to the UK if Mr Cameron’s “dreams” came true.

Ukip leader Farage was quick to criticise David Cameron's 'dreams' of the EU

He said: “People in the past have had dreams of a Europe that stretched from the Atlantic and the Urals.

“It is not a dream that this country, rightly, has ever shared.”

Mr
Cameron has been a staunch advocate of Turkey joining the EU and last
week welcomed interest by Serbia. Adding Turkey (70 million), Ukraine
(45 million), Kazakhstan (17 million), and Serbia (7 million) would add
139 million to the EU’s population.

Coalition
tensions also flared yesterday, with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg
saying the Lib Dems would always be “the party of ‘in’” in any
referendum battle, while the Tories looked increasingly like “the party
of ‘out’”.

Lib Dem and Labour MPs are set to abstain on Friday’s Tory backbench bill which require a referendum by the end of 2017.

Meanwhile
Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable said yesterday that leaving the
EU is “not a realistic economic option for this country”.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

RSIS presents the following commentary Whose Sovereignty over the Paracels? A Response by Sam Bateman. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward anycomments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, atRSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg. Republication is allowed subject to prior permission from the Editor.

No. 100/2014 dated 26 May 2014

Whose Sovereignty over the Paracels?A Response

By Sam Bateman

Synopsis

Rather
than getting into an unproductive debate over matters of detail, this
response to the critique of an earlier commentary looks more at the
deleterious impact of sovereignty arguments on managing the South China
Sea and its resources.

Commentary

IN
THEIR joint RSIS Commentary No. 099/2014 entitled Sovereignty over
Paracels: Article Lets Off Beijing Lightly, Dr Huy Duong and Dr Tuan
Pham criticised my viewpoint, New Tensions in the South China Sea: Whose
Sovereignty over Paracels? (RSIS Commentary No 088/2014). Their
criticism highlights two fundamental issues with the South China Sea
disputes more generally. The first is that these disputes and their
implications for maritime boundaries are complex and unlikely to be
resolved in the foreseeable future. This factor has become the major
obstacle to effective governance of the South China Sea.

The
second is that strident assertions of sovereignty are unhelpful and do
nothing to help establish necessary regimes for managing the sea and its
resources. While this is the case, fish stocks are being over-fished,
marine habitats are being destroyed, good order at sea is lacking, and
there is inadequate marine scientific knowledge to provide for the
development of its resources.

Sovereignty over the Paracels

Whether
China’s oil rig is established in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone
(EEZ) depends largely on which country has sovereignty over the
Paracels. The authors criticised my comments about weaknesses in
Vietnam’s claim. In doing so, they omit to acknowledge that Woody Island
has been continuously occupied by China since immediately after World
War Two; presumably they would write this factor out because it is
‘confusing occupation with sovereignty’ – but over 60 years without
effective challenge for much of that period is a long time.

The
authors misread my comment that geographical proximity alone is not an
unequivocal basis for claiming sovereignty or sovereign rights. In
saying this, I am not mixing up the concepts of sovereignty and
sovereign rights. Rather my comment was aimed at the repeated,
simplistic assertions that the Chinese rig is located ‘well within’
Vietnam’s EEZ, presumably on the basis of proximity to mainland Vietnam.
‘Sovereign rights’ in this context was of course a reference to the
fact that within an EEZ, a country only exercises rights over the
resources of the zone – not sovereignty.

Vietnam can make good
arguments to support its claim to sovereignty over the Paracels, but
these are just that – arguments. China also has arguments. The
respective arguments have ultimately to be tested either through the
process of bilateral negotiation or before an international tribunal. In
the meantime, there are no agreed boundaries in this part of the sea,
and disputes such as the one we are seeing now are becoming more
frequent.Sovereignty assertionsAssertions
of sovereignty have become even more strident in recent years.
Bordering countries have eschewed cooperation for fear that by
cooperation they will somehow be compromising their sovereignty claims.

Largely
led by the Indonesia-sponsored workshops on resolving conflict in the
South China Sea, countries around the South China Sea appeared to be
heading towards a process of effective cooperation in the 1990s and
early 2000s. This was evident in the 2002 Declaration on Conduct of
Parties (DOC) which listed specific areas for cooperation. However
recently, the process has been bogged down by nationalistic assertions
of sovereignty.

These assertions have picked up their own
momentum due to public fervour and the notion that the islands involved
are an integral part of the nation state. The consequences of this have
been clearly evident in the recent violent nationalistic protests in
Vietnam against China.

At the risk of promoting another storm of
protest from Vietnamese scholars, I venture to suggest that among the
littoral countries, Vietnam has been the main offender with its strident
assertions of sovereignty and a half-hearted response to its
obligations under the international law of the sea, particularly UNCLOS
Part IX. China at least has proposed the China-ASEAN Maritime
Cooperation Fund to facilitate the process of cooperation.

I
happily concede that by relying on secondary sources that quote
different figures, I may have presented some incorrect distances. But
the impact of this oversight is marginal and does not affect my basic
concerns. Arguments over detail amount to ‘not seeing the wood for the
trees’ where effective cooperative regimes are the ‘wood’.

Even
with Woody Island size does not really matter. It is big enough to meet
the criteria of being an ‘island’ in the regime of islands in UNCLOS,
and would be a consideration in the delimitation of maritime boundaries.
Vietnam with its long coastline onto the South China Sea adopts the
line that there are no ‘islands’ in the South China Sea lest they become
a factor in boundary negotiations.

Way forward

The
South China Sea situation will only be settled when the bordering
countries change their mindsets from one of sovereignty, sole ownership
of resources and seeking ‘fences in the sea’ (that is, establishing
maritime boundaries between neighbouring countries) to one of functional
cooperation and cooperative management. This would be in accordance
with both the obligation under Part IX of UNCLOS and the spirit of the
2002 DOC.

The authors concluded their criticism by claiming that I
could make a more positive contribution to peace and cooperation by
encouraging China to submit itself to the dispute settlement procedure
in UNCLOS. Might I say the same of Vietnam?

My heartfelt
contribution to regional peace and cooperation is to argue the case for a
changed mindset from one of sovereignty, sole ownership of resources
and seeking ‘fences in the sea’ to one of functional cooperation and
cooperative management of the South China Sea and its resources. The
strident assertions of sovereignty, even evident in the response of the
authors, are becoming more counter-productive and leading nowhere.

In
the long term, all parties will suffer due to the continued lack of
effective arrangements for resource management, marine scientific
research, marine environmental protection, the safety and security of
shipping passing through the area, and the prevention of illegal
activities at sea. Ultimately the national interest of all parties
requires this cooperation.

Sam
Bateman is a Senior Fellow in the Maritime Security Programme at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang
Technological University. He is a former Australian naval commodore with
research interests in regimes for good order at sea.

Does The Economy Move In Predictable Waves, Cycles Or Patterns? If So We Are In Trouble

May 26, 2014 | Tom OlagoShare this article

Does the economy move in predictable waves, cycles or patterns? According to many economic cycle theorists, it does – and the forecasts all predict economic doom and gloom in the United States over the rest of this decade.

Between 2015 and 2020, many economic cycle trend readings project that the U.S. economy is about to enter a major downturn.

Michael Snyder, in a recent report for the economic collapse blog explains some of the economic cycle theories painting this dire picture. These are summarized as follows:

1. One of the most prominent economic cycle theories is known as "the Kondratieff wave". Snyder explains that it was developed by a Russian economist named Nikolai Kondratiev, described by Wikipedia as having been executed by the Russian government in 1938 because of his economic theories.

In 1939, Joseph Schumpeter suggested naming the cycles "Kondratieff waves" in his honor. The long term business cycles that he identified through meticulous research are now called "Kondratieff" cycles or "K" waves. The K wave is a 60 year cycle (+/- a year or so) with internal phases that are sometimes characterized as seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter:

- Spring phase: a new factor of production, good economic times, rising inflation;

- Summer: hubristic 'peak' war followed by societal doubts and double digit inflation;

- Autumn: the financial fix of inflation leads to a credit boom which creates a false plateau of prosperity that ends in a speculative bubble;

Snyder explains that according to work done by Professor W. Thompson of Indiana University, we are heading into an economic depression that should last until about the year 2020. Based on Professor Thompson's analysis, long K cycles have nearly a thousand years of supporting evidence. If we accept the fact that most winters in K cycles last 20 years, this would indicate that we are about halfway through the Kondratieff winter that commenced in the year 2000.

Thus in all probability we will be moving from a "recession" to a "depression" phase in the cycle, predicted to start about the year 2013 and lasting until approximately 2017-2020.

2. The economic cycle theories of author Harry Dent also predict that we are on the verge of massive economic problems. He mainly focuses on demographics, stating that young people cause inflation because they "cost everything and produce nothing", but eventually "begin to pay off when they enter the workforce and become productive new workers (supply) and higher-spending consumers (demand)."

Dent’s findings as summarized by Business Insider are as follows:

- The U.S. reached its demographic "peak spending" from 2003-2007 and is headed for the "demographic cliff." European nations Germany, England, Switzerland are all expected to suffer the same fate, with China being the first of emerging market nations “to fall off the cliff”.

- U.S. stock market will crash. "Our best long-term and intermediate cycles suggest another slowdown and stock crash accelerating between very early 2014 and early 2015, and possibly lasting well into 2015 or even 2016. The worst economic trends due to demographics will hit between 2014 and 2019. The U.S. economy is likely to suffer a minor or major crash by early 2015 and another between late 2017 and late 2019 or early 2020 at the latest…”

- The U.S. and Europe are headed in the same direction as Japan, a country “still in a coma economy precisely because it never let its debt bubble deleverage. The only way we will not follow in Japan's footsteps is if the Federal Reserve stops printing new money."

- Fewer spenders, borrowers, and investors will be around to participate in the next boom…it all comes down to an aging population.

- The big four challenges in the years ahead will be 1) private and public debt 2) health care and retirement entitlements 3) authoritarian governance around the globe and 4) environmental pollution that threatens the global economy.

According to Dent, "You need to prepare for that crisis, which will occur between 2014 and 2023, with the worst likely starting in 2014 and continuing off and on into late 2019."

3. Another economic cycle theory that people are paying more attention to these days is the relationship between sun spot cycles and the stock market.

It turns out that market peaks often line up very closely with peaks in sun spot activity. Based on this theory, first popularized by an English economist William Stanley Jevons, sun spot activity appears to have peaked in early 2014 and is projected to decline for the rest of the decade. If historical trends hold up, that is a very troubling sign for the stock market.

Several other economic cycle theories that seem to indicate that trouble is ahead for the United States as well. Snyder provides a summary from an article by GE Christenson and Taki Tsaklanos, with the relevant source and cycle names provided:

4. According to Charles Nenner’s research, stocks should peak in mid-2013 and fall until about 2020. Similarly, bonds should peak in the summer of 2013 and fall thereafter for 20 years. He bases his conclusions entirely on cycle research. He expects the Dow to fall to around 5,000 by 2018 – 2020.

5. Clif Droke describes Kress Cycles thus: The major 120 year cycle plus all minor cycles trend down into late 2014. The stock market should decline hard into late 2014.

6. Robert Prechter believes that in the Elliott Wave, the stock market has peaked and has entered a generational bear-market. He anticipates a crash low in the market around 2016 – 2017.

7. David Nichols, in the online publication Market Energy Waves, sees a 36 year cycle in stock markets that is peaking in mid-2013 and will cycle down for 2013 – 2016. “… The controlling energy wave is scheduled to flip back to negative on July 19 of this year.” Equity markets should drop 25 – 50%.

8. According to Armstrong Economics, the economic confidence model projected a peak in confidence in August 2013, a bottom in September 2014, and another peak in October 2015. The decline into January 2020 should be severe. He expects a world-wide crash and contraction in economies from 2015 – 2020.

Snyder notes that it is disconcerting to a lot of people that 2014 is turning out to be eerily similar to 2007, and that America seems to be repeating mistakes instead of implementing lessons learned.

He further points to indications that the next major economic downturn is just around the corner, such as news that manufacturing job openings have declined for four months in a row. Snyder concludes: “Let's hope that all of the economic cycle theories discussed above are wrong this time, but we would be quite foolish to ignore their warnings.

Everything indicates that a great economic storm is rapidly approaching, and we should use this time of relative calm to get prepared while we still can”.

It is also noteworthy that these predictions are also being currently corroborated by other observers.

Business Cycle.com on the 9th of May published a Business Insider interview with Lakshman Achuthan,the co-founder of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. When asked by Business Insider what he thought was the “most worrisome sign in the economy”, Lakshman in part replied:

“In fact, demographics, along with productivity growth averaging less than 1% for the last three years, have helped keep U.S. trend growth so low that the inevitable growth slowdowns are more likely to end in recession. This is the hallmark of the “yo-yo years,” characterized by more frequent recessions than most expect. There’s no indication that this era will end soon, even if we see occasional 3%-plus GDP growth quarters, given that even Japan in its “lost decades” has seen 3%-plus GDP growth in 30% of the quarters since 1990.”

The context around Lakshman’s recent comments such as “demographics”, “low productivity growth… likely to end in recession”, “no indication that this era will end soon” – are all consistent with the cycles- based conclusions arrived at by Nikolai Kondratiev’s Kondratieff wave theory and Harry Dent’s dire economic predictions, not to mention the many other similar independently established findings.

It will certainly help America to heed the warnings and implement lessons learnt from economic history and forecasts before it becomes too late, or to at least limit the impact of what would be “pure hell for the United States” in these years leading up to 2020.

Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/May26/263.html#E0i9ilWzkZFAtQtC.99

After a decade of negotiations, Russia
has finally inked one of the biggest energy deal of the century with China, a
30-year $400 billion gas supply agreement between Gazprom and CNPC. The US-EU
sanction due to the Ukraine conflict has left Russia with no choice but to turn
east, conceding gas prices lower than they expected. Britain warned of gas
shortages in Europe. Aled Jones of Anglia Ruskin University reports that
Britain’s North Sea gas will run out in three years, which will drive up prices
in Europe. Russia supplies a third to a quarter of EU’s gas needs.

Branded by many as the ‘New Silk Road’,
the 4,000–kilomerter Russo-Sino pipeline promises to be the longest in history,
transporting 40 to 60 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Russia offered tax
exemptions for gas exports. In return, China will help develop Siberian gas
fields and offer cheap credit to Russia. The Russo-Sino economic alliance is
being complemented by military cooperation, evident from recent joint military
exercises in disputed islands with Japan. (Source. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/russia-30-year-400bn-gas-deal-china)

THE COMING US-CHINA ENERGY WAR

China’s Despair for Oil

Japanese historians claimed that Japan
entered World War II as a pre-emptive strikeagainst Western colonization,
the British in Malaysia-Singapore, the Americans in the Philippines, and the
Dutch in Indonesia. The Shoguns argued that if they did not attack, they would be
attacked soon. If war was inevitable, it was better they had the initiative.

China’s mindset today is similar. When
two carriers shamed China in the Taiwan Straits decades ago, China knew that someday
push would come to shove, that a future pre-emptive strike against the US was
becoming more and more inevitable. China considers that shame as a blessing in
disguise. Now, US carriers cannot just move around freely in the South China
Sea. China has done its homework. It now has a vast underground Air Force,
Mac-10 missiles that can take out US carriers, pro-type twin-hulled carriers that
can refuel nuke subs, larger stealth bombers and drones, and thousands of submarine
detectors in the entire length of the China Sea. It has been preparing for the same
inevitable war in the logic of the Shoguns.

China has become increasingly aggressive
in Senkaku and Spratleys in its despair for oil, otherwise its gigantic economy
will crash. They unilaterally annexed these islands, as they did Tibet, based
on their mere mention in old Chinese chronicles. Yet they refuse to go to court
because they know they will lose. It is now a game for soldiers not lawyers.

China believes the US may rattle its
saber but will not just go into an escalated confrontation, what with its shrinking
economy. Thus, China has been casually ramming Philippine, Vietnamese and
Indian vessels at will, with little or no American reaction.

China knows the US has its own
pre-emptive strike plans, the Pentagon’s Air/Sea Battle (ASB) scenario. It is now a matter
of who is quicker at the draw. Observers say either a Chinese energy crisis or
a US economic crisis or both will catalyze a deadly US-China confrontation in
the Asia Pacific. In that digital war, the Philippines and Vietnam are mere collateral damage.
Japan may be forced to rewrite its Constitution banning nukes and troops
abroad. Both China and the US know a failed pre-emptive strike is dangerous.
So, for now, no one is reaching for his gun. But energy is the catalyst for
war.

Jim
Rickards was asked how long the gold manipulation could continue now
that the cat is out of the bag. He basically answered: until the
physical shortage of gold leads to a large buy order not being filled;
especially given the demand shock coming from China and India:

•• May 22, 2014, 7:06 AM SGTQ&A: South China Sea Tensions and the Future of AseanBySara SchonhardtThis picture, taken from a Vietnam Coast Guard ship on May 14, shows a Vietnamese Coast Guard ship (left) beingchallenged by a Chinese Coast Guard ship near to the site of a Chinese oil rig that has set off a tense dispute between thetwo countries.Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesA simmering dispute between China and some of its Southeast Asian neighbors overthe South China Sea flared up last week – sparking deadly riots and protests inVietnam. China’s increasingly aggressive moves to press its claims to parts of thewaters, believed to be rich in oil, has drawn out deep-seated grievances in Vietnamand posed challenges to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a body formednearly 50 years ago to ensure peace in the region.Southeast Asia Real Time asked several experts their thoughts on the currenttensions and what they mean for the future security of Southeast Asia.Carl Thayer, professor humanities and social sciences and an expert onVietnamese foreign policy in the Australian Defense Force Academy at theUniversity of New South Wales.WSJ: Can the Vietnamese government stand up for itself enough to calm the angerand protests within the country without forcing China to act even more provocatively?Mr. Thayer: Yes the Vietnam government has extensive resources to repress anyfurther protests, violent or otherwise, that take place. The Vietnamese governmenthas also moved to assuage China by clamping down and arresting workers involvedin the violent attacks on Chinese and other foreign invested properties. But theVietnamese government will have its work cut out calming nationalist anti-Chinasentiment. Many of those who protested peacefully in the cities are critical by whatthey perceive as government inaction.WSJ: Vietnam obviously can’t stand up militarily to China but also doesn’t seem tohave much support from its Asean neighbors. What would it need to do to strike analliance with the U.S. similar to what the Philippines has? And is this something itdesires?Mr. Thayer: Vietnam will not strike an alliance with the United States under anycircumstances. Vietnam is fearful that in the end China and the U.S. will reachagreement over the South China Sea at Vietnam’s expense. Vietnam has a policy ofthree no’s enshrined in the last two Defense White Papers: no foreign military bases,no military alliances, and no use of a third country against another country. U.S.-Vietnam defense and security relations are very low level.WSJ: How serious is the current standoff – worse than the border war in 1979? Andwhat might it portend for the future?Mr. Thayer: The current crisis is the worst eruption in bilateral relations since the1979 border war, but it hardly bears comparison. In 1977 and 1978, prior to theborder war, there were rising deadly incidents along the Sino-Vietnamese border. Aquarter of a million ethnic Chinese (or Hoa people) fled into southern China. After theborder war, the border was tense, featuring frequent Chinese artillery barragesduring Vietnam’s decade-long intervention in Cambodia.An escalation of violence is always a possibility given the daily confrontation at seaaround the oil rig. China will bluster and get its pound of flesh for the violencedirected at Chinese factories and workers. China will keep up the pressure longenough to convince Vietnam to adopt a conciliatory and accommodationist posture.When China put the rig in Vietnam’s waters it claimed it would operate from May 2 toAugust 15. China kept the door open for it to de-escalate on its terms. At some pointChina will receive a Vietnamese high-level envoy and they will reach terms tomanage this situation. Both sides will put a spin on their agreement as part of a facesavingarrangement.

About Me

ROLAND SAN JUAN was a researcher, management consultant, inventor, a part time radio broadcaster and a publishing director. He died last November 25, 2008 after suffering a stroke. His staff will continue his unfinished work to inform the world of the untold truths. Please read Erick San Juan's articles at: ericksanjuan.blogspot.com This blog is dedicated to the late Max Soliven, a FILIPINO PATRIOT.
DISCLAIMER - We do not own or claim any rights to the articles presented in this blog. They are for information and reference only for whatever it's worth. They are copyrighted to their rightful owners.
************************************
Please listen in to Erick San Juan's daily radio program which is aired through DWSS 1494khz AM @ 5:30pm, Mondays through Fridays, R.P. time, with broadcast title, “WHISTLEBLOWER” the broadcast tackle current issues, breaking news, commentaries and analyses of various events of political and social significance.
***************************************
LIVE STREAMING
http://www.dwss-am1494khz.blogspot.com